Every one of my Brides will tell you that the most important thing to me, when planning and designing a wedding, is that at the end of the day, family and friends walk away saying, “That wedding was so THEM”.

We start the planning by looking at a lot (a LOT) of pictures that Brides bring to me; tear sheets from every wedding magazine under the sun.  They almost always say something like “I know these don’t all go together and look totally different, but I like them all”.  But it always makes sense to me.  All those pages give us a great jumping-off point.  Then I like for Brides to look at other types of publications.  The “non-wedding” stuff.  Rip stuff outta there and show me that too.

We talk a lot (a LOT) about how they met, their first date, where there were engaged.  Funny, silly quirky stories unique to just the two of them.

Anyone can copy a photo out of a magazine.  What I want is a wedding that reflects the style and personality of the couple individually and together.

Kelly and Mark had some pretty unique ideas right off the bat.  They approached it like a lot of people do…hesitantly.  Wondering if I would think they were crazy.  But when they told me they had one friend who could play the ukulele and another who could blow into a conch shell and “would it just be too weird  if they were a part of the ceremony?”, I L-O-V-E-D them right away.   They totally “got it”.  This was THEIR wedding and we were going to make sure it showed!

 

They wanted a beach ceremony and a reception overlooking the Gulf.  Something different for the ceremony music and cocktail hour and a fun, quirky cake.  We placed long white casual benches in front of  an elegant arbor draped with delicate orchids (love that kind of juxtaposition), found some gorgeous, fun table linens and threw in a yummy candy buffet table.  And because I spoke with Mark almost as much as I did Kelly, every detail of the evening turned out to be a perfect reflection of them both.

At the end of the night, after Kelly and Mark left and their guests stood, enjoying the last of the sparklers, I smiled to myself as I walked past a small group of their friends and heard one of them say,  “Oh my gosh you guys, how fun!  That wedding was SO Kelly and Mark!”

beautiful photos courtesy of Leslie Roark Photography

Tags: beach club wedding, beach wedding, blow conch shell, blue candy, blue candy bar, blue candy buffet, blue wedding, candy bar, candy buffet, conch shell blowing, conch shell horn, conch shell horn wedding, conch shell wedding, saxaphone ceremony, saxaphone wedding, saxaphone wedding musician, sparklers, sparklers wedding, white lanterns wedding

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 16th, 2010 at 8:35 pm and is filed under Real Weddings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.